Missed my elk hunt for this? AK 2011!
Moose
I have received several PM's and email's about my moose hunt with Joe Shuster of Sportsman's Air Service in Galena, AK. It was an amazing hunt and time. I would recommend this outfitter to others with some additional recommendations on what to expect. Unfortunately, as we were flying in I smashed the screen on my camera so we used my buddies and I don't currently have the pics. That being said, he's bringing me the sd card this weekend so I can give all the hunt info and story.
We were successful on legal bulls with mine being a legal 48" 6 brow time bull and my buddies being a great 60" bull. The whole story is fairly intense and amazing. I'll work on it, but this may take me a week or so to get the story in.
Updates to continue periodically...
By the way, I live in Colorado and had to skip my favorite hunt all year (bugling bulls in my back yard) hence the thread title.
Congrats on a great hunt. Will be waiting for the pic's and story! JJ
We left from Denver to Fairbanks on Sept 9th.. Then onto Galena on a two seater the 10th.. That afternoon we were to fly out to our hunting area. Our flight in Fairbanks was delayed a couple hours due to mechanical issues (not fun for a guy who hates to fly) but it made for an interesting day getting us into the field.
I'm hoping to give the whole story so this will take some time. We left Galena after signing all the proper paperwork. Since our flight was delayed, we combined some flights. We flew out with Joe Shuster to the Selewik area to drop off two caribou hunters before turning around to fly back towards the Hogatza and Koyukuk river area. We had to take off on the Yukon River because our load was so heavy instead of the small water strip behind the base camp house. Here Chris is holding the plane to the land as we loaded our gear.
This is a view just after take off on the Yukon River
We landed on a remote lake to drop off the other hunters, unloaded their gear and within a half hour on our way to our hunting area. This is a picture of the caribou hunters lake.
On our way to our hunting camp. Some pics of the views.
We landed at our hunting lake tht make almost a complete circle with the lake only wint 100 yards wide around the whole lake. We made camp at the "C" points closes to the river. This is us being left in Remote Alaska.
Really looking forward to this story!
After we got the Camp set up with the tent, and tarp canopy for our cook area it was dark. Ready for a quick dinner and off to bed. Ready to hunt in the morning.
Opening morning I went out and called one hour before dark. within 20 minutes we had a grunting bull outside our tent and nothing we could do as it was too dark. We snuck out at first light, had a quick breakfast, walked 60 yards from camp and set up our chairs. After my first calling sequence I called this little bull to within 20 yards of Chris.
After a little while he swam across the lake and hung out for quite some time
I'm already jealous and I haven't even heard the whole story!!! Keep it coming!
Picture of home for what was to be two full weeks.
The next several photos are some views from our camp area. We saw a total of three moose on day one. A cow and a calf showed up several hundred yards down the lake. Little did we know how monotonous moose hunting can become. We did not see another moose until day 6.
okok... Alaska has some great country and beautiful scenery. After day 2 we decided to put the boat together and start our slow excursions away from camp. Joe explained that many many moose have been killed the first couple days in camp so we took his advice and stuck around for 2 days. After not seeing any moose we decided that day 3 we would float down a couple hundred yards and see what else the area had in store.
Chris working as usual. Me taking pictures and shying away from as much work as possible...
and finally we were ready to set sail. We loaded the boat with the decoy, call, one dry bag of clothes, food and water as well as the bows and rifles. Here I am showing off my incredible strength after some hard work...
Stands, come on! Post faster, your killing me!!
Great scenery...Awesome story!
now this is the kind of hunt report a guy can sink his teeth into!!!!!!!!!!!!
Man, that hunt is bringing back some fond memories.
unfortunately, for some stupid reason we did not take any prictures of us rowing around the lake. We do hav some of a typical moose hunt day. This is our first day away from camp and Chris and I are sitting during a very windy unproductive afternoon. We followed the all the advice of calling for a little time and sitting for hours. Believe me, during driving wind, rain, and some sun sprinkled in, the days can get long without seeing Moose. We were just told that is what to expect for moose hunting and its exactly what we got.
Moose hunting this day was windy, but we could see another lake and what looked like some openings across the lake from us. I took to the trees to find out.
When the moose hunting was a little boring or slow we would throw out some Rapala's or Spoons for some Pike fishing. It was pretty slow but I managed to pull in three small pike on this trip.
awesome! I love these hunt reports and semi-live hunts with all the pictures and updates. Keep 'em coming! Thanks!
We never did hook into any good pike, but it helped pass time. The large spoons and rapalas splashing on the water was no concern to use because there were tons of beavers all around us doing this all day. They kept us busy. Here is a picture of the lake I viewed while climbing the tree.
Right on... very cool and quite familiar... Ed F
After we would get back to our raft we noticed the top left panel had a leak that we could not find or fix. Also the bigger issue was that our foot pump went out on us at the seams. During pumping when the boat would need that extra air, it would blow out of the seems from the pump. This began to get very discouraging because at mid-day or evening when we would get ready to come back to camp we would have to make a ton of noise just to get the boat floatable and back to camp. This prompted a phone call to Shuster in order to get at least a new pump. He stated that he would be coming our way the next day and bring us a new pump and boat. I have to say that Joe did his best to make sure we were hunting all the time. During a small rain shower we heard the plane approaching. Joe brought us a bone saw that was not included in gear provided, a new boat, a new pump, and some clean water. There are a couple stories in there. Especially the bone saw.
Our schedule's during the days were to get up around 6, eat a quick breakfast of oatmeal or ceral and head out. We would go to a predetereming "spot", park the boat and sit. We would basically sit from 6ish till noon, head back to camp for an hour or two of lunch and head back to another spot. We would call and be patient. Many moose hunters said that sometimes it takes a couple days for moose to actually react and move into the area. This turned out to be very true but made for some long days. Here we are preparing lunch. Its been many many years since I had spam but it tasted fine!
As soon as we got the new boat we headed back to camp and got it on the water. We now had two boats if needed and needed they both were.
We ran out of water on day three and had to use the filter that was provided for us. Apparently it worked because I never got sick but all we would do is cook with it by boiling the water to heat the vacpacked food (that was very good that Joe provided), Mountain House, or warm drinks. We both had filtration water bottles that the "filtered" water would then go through. This picture is of our filtered water and the clean water dropped off from above.
As you can see, the hunting was pretty slow from day two till day five. I'll get to it. On day 6 we woke to an incredible fog. We couldn't see more than 100 yards but set out anyway. We set up on the far side of the lake until mid morning. We headed back after the fog burned off and it bacame very warm..if not hot. It was actually a nice change from the colder, windy, rainy weather that we had the previous couple days. We sat at camp and dried everything out that needed to dry out. We washed up best we could, including our heads in that cold lake, and enjoyed the sun. We knew that during hot days moose hunting gets pretty slow so we didn't get out of camp until around 4pm. We went to the lake that I had prevously spotted when climing the tree, set up the decoy since you could see for a long time and made the mistake of leaving the bows at camp since it was a pain getting everything into the boat and we weren't all that comfident we would see anything at all. We were very wrong. Here is a picture of a rainbow that showed up during our evening sit. We sat for three hours reading and bs'ing and decided to start calling when it cooled off.
Dan this is a great thread! Mike
One of the best threads ever!!!
This is a hunt most of us have dreamed of for some time! Many of us could do this hunt and some of us will. Thanks for keeping the fire in us going! Ron
I fished for a little while with no luck. I had read almost 40 pages of Have Bow Will Travel by E Donnell Thomas, Jr when I head splashing behind us. This was no big deal because we were used to the beavers continually slapping their tails all around the lake. We guessed that there had to be at least 40 beavers on this one lake.
But after the third splash it sounded a little different. I turned around and told Chris, "There he is Chris". Now we only had our guns because it was so hot we just didn't really think tonight was our night. I am a archery maniac in all sense of the word, but I am not too proud to rifle hunt either. Well today was my day to shoot first. Chris and I had rock paper scissors the first day, therefore alternating which day who got the first shot.
Most hunters would go for the gun or bow first, I went for my camcorder. I got it rolling and handed it to Chris who in the meantime determined the bull was legal with 6 brow tines on one side and 5 on the other.
He stood like this for over a minute.
The film ran the whole time as Chris and I discussed whether to shoot this bull. I knew that he wasn't necessarily the bull I came all the way to Alaska for, nor spent the money on BUT what I had not mentioned is that my dad drove from Colorado with a chest freezer to take as much meat back as we wanted. This bull would make great table fare and putting one bull down meant a sort of achievement and relaxation for the rest of the hunt.
Chris and I bantored back and forth for a little bit with me saying, "should I shoot him" and Chris saying "Yes". Finally Chris said the magic words, "Danny if you don't shoot him now, I will". Well now my decision was made. I decided to take the shot.
He stopped and looked back one more time before I shot. He immediately was hit hard and took three steps and stopped. Chris said to put one more in him before he gets to the deep water. The second shot put him down for the count. Again, for those die hard never rifle hunt bowhunters on this site, my apologies. We brought our bows all the way to Alaska and left them in camp this day.
though I could not shoot at this distance with a bow, I really really think we could have called him across the river with us. Oh well, one day I WILL go back and do this again.
After the bull hit the water I continually asked Chris if I had just made the right decision. He assured me that he would and ALMOST DID make that decision for me. He said that if I would have been a little more indecisive, I was ready to shoot. That made me feel better as he was being very honest.
I dont' want to everyone to think that I am not proud of this beutiful bull, I just knew it wasn't the 60+ inch monsters that I could have killed and Chris reassured me that this was the right decision.
We now had 6+ days to kill Chris's bull.
We loaded up the boat with all of our gear very happy and knowing that we had a lot of work to do. We paddled over to the bull and thankfully he fell in just 18-20 inches of water. We could take care of one half of him then the other.
Both of us were in awe at the sheer size of these animals. This bull was 48" wide, younger, but was at least 3x's the size of a mature bull elk. We snapped several photos, and began the enormous job of taking apart my moose.
There is no need to apologize to anyone for what you have accomplished. This is #2 on my bucket list to do being with a rifle or bow (who cares) # 1 is a Brown Bear. That is one great bull moose and it sounds like you had one helluv a good time, that is all that matters. Keep the posts coming
Mtfury, thank you for that. One thing I should apologize for is not my spelling. I should really use the spell check...
We got all of our "stuff" organized and I called Joe Shuster to tell him that we had a moose down. He told me to hang tight, congrats, and he would do his best to get there the next day. I was the 6th moose down they needed to pick up.
It was around 7ish when I shot my bull. We had roughly 3 hours of light left to take this bull apart and get him hung up at camp. Easy right? Fat Chance.
What we didn't know is that our lives were about to get much much much more interesting. this picture is obviously when we got the bull half skinned.
the above picture of me calling will be used as reference of how spaced out our "stuff" was. During the skinning process we left my rifle and my sidearm near us in case of an unlikely but possible visit from a hungry griz.
Congrats on the hunt , nice moose , great pictures and very good story. I thought that I was the only one that had bowhunters shoot with a rifle though. lol Great job !!
Nice story and pictures! Congrats on the moose you're freezer is going to be full that's for sure!
Dude, this is my dream hunt!!!!!!!!!!!! You got me sucked in, i'm on the edge of my seat, what next!?!?!?!?!
As we were just starting to take off the front quarter of my bull I head a grunt. I looked at Chris, who is apparently half deaf from so many coyotes killed with a rifle in his life, and he was busy working. I stood up and heard it again. This bull was coming in from our left. I grabbed Chris's arm and we both immediately reacted.
I went for the camcorder and and Chris for my gun that only now had two bullets. I threw him one more on my way to my camera. We could not see more than 30 yards in front of us due to how thick the trees and willows were. All we could see is the top of some willows getting destroyed by this aggressive bull.
Chris told me to give him a couple grunts, I did. He reacted aggressively as I could see pieces of his body moving. He stopped to destroy some more willows before committing to us.
As one of the pictures above depicts, we had our blue boat parked with our dead half skinned moose in the water, as well as all of our stuff on land. In now way could we go anywhere to set up. That was our set up. This picture shows chronologically how this HUGE full came in. See how thick the foilage is?
I am standing in water up to just above my knees with Chris to my left about ten yards. As I am grunting the bull continues to come when I get to finally see a glimps of his antlers...huge. I tell Chris, "He's Legal" and Chris gives me that "NO shiv" look and I keep recording.
The bull is grunting literally every step when he finally comes into view at 20 yards!!!
this bull kept coming, swaying back and forth. I have never really been that nervous with an deer species animal before but this bull was pretty intimidating. He was not scared of all the stuff scattered everywhere, boat, two idiots in waders, and a dead moose. He was there to fight someone and I was literally the closest living thing near him.
This bull stopped 15 yards from me, grunting and swaying. I finally could not take it anymore and told Chris to kill him. Now remember that Chris is off to my left and has a much better angle on him than I do for a shot.
Chris has forgot to take the safety off so the shot is delayed several seconds then off the gun goes and the bull, hit hard whorls around. Chris gets off two more shots we can hear the bull going through the trees when all is quiet.
After a little while we decide to trail the bull. The bull doubled back towards the water. We found him standing up next to the water swaying. We PRAYED he did not fall into the water and thankfully a very large tree had fallen and the big bull just couldn't get over it. Thankfully he fell with his back against the tree.
We now had two very large animals on the ground and only two hours of light. I am not usually scared to take care of an animal at night, but in unfamiliar country with griz tracks not too far from camp and being an Alaskan hunting rookie...this was going to be a long night!
I wrestled with posting this picture but thought you could see the bull better this way. Chris is looking town the barrel waiting to see if he needs to try and keep him from getting into the water.
Fantastic story! A dream hunt of mine.
Excellent hunt narrative. Congratulations on a once in a lifetime experience.
Two bulls down for two hunters, now packing out an elk is going to feel like small potatoes.lol
Priceless !!! What an adventure.
Gun hunt or not, this is pretty entertaining! Keep it up.
Chris had just made my bull look small! He actually apologized several times to me, though definately not needed, for killing the big bull after "convincing" me to take the shots at the legal, but younger bull.
Here is where life gets more interesting. Tackling this amount of work as its getting dark is going to be a chore. A huge chore. That being said, congrats on the great bull Chris. Now I have to go back to get my 60" one day...
I am a fan, what happened next? Sore backs, aching knees, dull knives?
Notice that the laytex gloves I am still wearing. By the way if you go these are absolutly vital from keeping the biting flies away. DO NOT LEAVE THEM HOME. We forgot them back at camp and got destroyed when skinning mine until Chris remembered his 1st aid kit had them.
Sweet and beautiful. Only someone who does a do-it-yourself Alaska hunt can understand the satisfaction of doing it all from start to finish. Great times!
OK OK apology acepted, now get on with the story before you forget any of the details!! this is by far better than live! "standswithacamera" you are doing an awesome job with this thread.............WOW! ok, where's the next post, hope your computer did not crash :(
We decided to take my bull back first and get it hunt, then paddle back to get Chris's bull. We took some pictures (not enough but at least they turned out good). One of the most dissappointing things on this hunt was after Chris's bull went down, my camcorder was on but I forgot to push record as we were walking up to the bull. One thing I hate is actually watching, on film or a hunting show, of an animal going down. Just bothers me, so I stopped recording the bull standing and going down but unfortunately forgot to hit record again. SO no footage of the downed bull and its size. Oh well, next time then.
Here is where life gets more interesting. We took the wyoming saw out and to our great suprise... no wingnut for the saw, therfore no saw..No saw, its fairly warm, though cooling off, and two HUGE animals to process. I called Joe to get some ideas. Joe cussed and apologized for putting us in this position. The reason we didn't bring a saw was because it was on the outfitter provided gear. BIG MISTAKE. Always bring your own saw...DUH Right?
Joe mentioned our old beat up hatchet that was provided and said we would have to take apart the ribs using this. Great...more work, but at least we had a plan. We quartered my entire moose, took off the backstraps but the hatchet was back at camp. We decided, since this new boat had a small leak in it as well around the intake valve, to take all the quarters of my bull, get them hung and come back for my ribs, head, and the rest of Chris's bull after we got mine hunt. This turned out to be a muddy mess and thank god for trimming the meat to clean it up. I was a little embarrassed at what the meat looked like but it was so HEAVY (you don't understand until you try to life hind qtrs of a moose into game bags while standing in muddy lake water).
This is where Chris worked his tail off. His brute strenth helped a ton and we managed to get my my bull back to camp and hung up. We were in such a hurry that we didn't take as many pictures as we should have during this time. Another mistake. We made it back to camp and hung my bull on the game pole and had a bite to eat. We were worn out and needed some energy so we decided to warm something up real quick then head back. Besides, we only had to worry about paddling back up to two downed carcusses in remote alaska and worry about bears. I may be overdoing the bear thing...but I don't think so...
Under full disclosure...this was not taken the night we killed our bulls, but a good mean nonetheless. We had a mountain house or something like that...
GREAT photo essay and great hunt. Excellent job with both!!!!!
A wonderfull read and hunt!
Good luck, Robb
I will fill some photos in here as we go but due to our pace and urgency to get the bulls taken care of we stupidly did not take any pictures of this process, which quit honestly will go down as one of the if not the most interesting hunting night so far.
After we ate Chris thought that we could grab the other boat, fill the leaking panel back up with air, as well as our leaking (though slowly) and pull it behind our boat. Seeing us navigate a boat would have been worth the price of admission. We could do more 360's and zig zags that sometimes we would just stop rowing and start laughing as the boat eventually would correct itself.
Rowing back with my bulls quarters was a hassle because the legs grug in the water creating directional issues and a competing force. We figured we might be up until the sun shows again. We started back to pick up my moose head and rib cage. We fiigured that in the morning I could trim out the ribcage, use the hatchet to separate them and get them hung.
Chris's dead bull had sat next to the lake for about 3.5 hours when we started back. It was warm but we knew that us two idiots would work all night if need be to get the work done.
this picture is early morning during the hunt. We took off when it was under moon only and headed back.. This picture represents the way we had to row on our way back to get our "stuff".
This picture was taken not too long before I shot the smaller bull. #1 represents where my bull fell, #2 Chris's. We got very very lucky that we didn't have to pack these bulls first. We could just muscle them onto the boat(s)
WOW! What an awesome hunt! WOW!
Congratulations on a hunt of a lifetime! Awesome!
No fair, you killed more moose in one day than I have in 7 hunts. And you didn't even have to pack them. I must be doing something wrong!
Love this story! Is there more???
great adventure! memories for life and great story telling.
i think this thread has effectively made a mockery out of the live mobile hunts back home for the local neighborhood does.
One of the best threads ever on this site!! Thanks for sharing
I need to take some more time to explain our night. We paddled back talking loud and when we finally rowed up on my bull's rib cage and head. We were yelling that stupid cliche "HEY BEAR", just in case a bear actually knows its a bear and would subsequently answer us.
The good news is that he was not present at roll call and we hit land as fast as we could and got a lesson how much a moose head, skull, and cape weighs. those who know...well know. those of us that hadn't experienced the weight of this have no clue!
Somehow someway we got my ribcage loaded in the middle of the back boat as well as my head in the frotn. the boat had endoed forward as we paddled the extra couple hundred yards towards the big bull. Now just remember when I said he fell next to a large pine tree? This posed an issue. as we couldn't reach the entire backstrap as it was "under" the back half of the log. His spinal column up till maybe half of the ribcage was either under the bottom of half of the log or up against the log. check out this picture and imagine this. NO WAY TO MOVE A MOOSE!!!!
Of course when we got back to him ole rigga set in...not good!!!
What did work in our favor was the weather. yep, clear and a beautiful full moon ALL NIGHT long. All night because I mean all night. Chris muscled literally this moose to pieces. I started on the back half when my stupid knife was too dull and he needed some help just "holding" legs, ect. At some point I told him how useless I felt being on bear duty when we actually heard something that sounded large walking in the trees just inland from where we were. Chris jumped the moose and we held our sidearms yelling at the top of our lungs
This is when I decided this trip was maybe...maybe too much of an adventure. Chris I guess finally felt comfortable to continue or just figured we had no choice anyway and I stood on bear patrol, holding legs or standing like the little fat kid during camping on the movie "Stand By Me".
I wish I had some pictures of this. Me holding a leg with my right arm (i'm a righty and needed all strength to hold up the legs) and pointing my .44 into the weeds with my left. Funny at best.
To make a VERY long night shorter in this thread we slowly put this moose into the boat, one piece at a time. We made a strategic decision to leave the moose cooling and spread out on the boats for the night and get them hung in the morning.
At 4:00AM we finally loaded the head to this big SOB in the back boat. This picture is of Chris showing how big just the hooves of these animals are.
I wish I could have show everyone the images of that night, but unfortunately I cannot. We started paddling back with an insane load of front & hind quarter in our blue boat that we were rowing, all of our stuff in the middle, and a front and hind in the back of the boat. Of course Chris in the front and me in the back of the boat rowing. I had almost froze at one point because I was soaked and stood around bear shooing too long. One thing that would scare me is when I would start to hear the beavers tail slap they kept getting closer and closer. To me this was a huge bear walking our way and each beaver telling us what's coming... stupid imagination.
I was incredibly cold...until I picked up the hatchet. I was officially the hatchet rib boy on chris's bull. This was a chore in itself. Chris would spread pull on the ribs as I hatcheted away. Near the sternum was an absolute bear to chop through. This is the only time since we killed our bulls that Chris stood around. I wish I also could display how much work he put in during this night. Amazing. I did my fair share but he was unstoppable.
Like I said above we started back at 4am. This is the only time Chris got a little cold as he was full of sweat and water from the lake.
To all, I would do anything to display this picture in my mind. We rowed and rowed and rowed....and rowed back to camp. The moon was as bright and full as I have ever seen it and we could see most everything around us. I would look back and see the moons reflection on the water with nothing but moose parts and horns coming out of the back boat.
The beavers would actually swim even with us just 10 yards off the boat and never splashed once. It took us about an hour-and hour in a half to get back to camp. We jumped off the boat, grabbed some granola and milk and hit the bed at 5:30 am.
here is a picture the next mornign of our boat.
Now comes more work. We woke up around 9 AM, Called joe to tell him about the 2nd moose. Now I wish we coulda shoulda said something different. he asked if we needed to get out of there that day or hung out for a couple days. We said whatever but coming out early would allow us to get the meat situated and ready for my dad's freezer sooner and quite honestly our focus was on our meat as it should be. BUT we should have stayed another couple days.
Earlier in the day that we killed our moose we found the river and by our map new of another big lake to explore just up the river. When I killed my bull our next mornings hunt was that way. We never got that chance. Joe said that he had another camp about 5 miles up river from us that had to come out that day and he would fly by, drop off their camp gear, and pick up four of our quarters.
We still had a ton of work to do. We had to get all hung up out of the rain. Our great weather had left, leaving the typical windy, rainy Alaskan weather I expected. Good for our meat, but get it out of the constant rain and water. This was somewhat comical to see us do that as well. We had to find another meat pull...again no saw... and put it in the same tree that our current tarp and my bull was in. This was so much weight, but my noonish we had all of the pieces in place.
check out all that meat and moose!
one more... love these pics
This is a great story guys! Also just found out we have a common friend. Brad at Western is coming to deer hunt with us next month. He emailed me the link to the thread. Had to tel him I'd been on it from the start. Small world sometimes.
Well don't let Bradly shoot the biggest whitetail! He killed a good one last year. His quota is filled!
To our suprise, when Joe showed up to get our first load of moose he said that he would be back in a couple hours and to have everything ready to go. We had more work to do on the meat because quite honestly we didn't real ALL the fine print and brought back the entire spinal column as we thought the meat needed to be attached other than the back straps. So we deboned all of the neck meat and got the meat down next to the lake on a tarp to pick up.
I wasn't quite done putting everything together inside the tent when Joe showed up again with a shout that we had ten minutes to get in the air before sunset and we couldn't fly. What an incredible dash to the finish line to get out that day. We had only been in camp roughly 6 and a half days and we were up flying back to Galena.
We were happy to get all of our gear in the plane and I was very happy when I put my $2,500 camcorder in a nice drybag when I saw it accidentally fall out of the plane and go 2 feet under water before popping back up. Joe quickly picked it up and said, "It'll be alright". One thing that I can say about Joe (an ex-nfl...r) is that he is a brute. While Chris and I were breaking camp he loaded Chris's whole moose, our antlers (that had finally been sawed off because the hunters Joe was flying out had one on his first trip to pick up our moose) as well as my bulls ribs. That was a ton of work.
around 8:45 we got off our lake and bid adue our camp. It was bittersweat because we just left from an absolute worlwind of a last couple days, now on only 4 hours of sleep.
We saw several moose on our way out to Galena and the Sunset was absolutely incredible. Check out this picture! I handed Chris the camera and had him roll down his window a bit and snap it while flying.
So I misspelled bid "adue" It's adieu...
My buddy Chris just text me to say that this thread is great but my spelling and grammar could use some work. It is very well disclosed in my life that I am a CPA and do numbers. Not Grammar!! or SPELLING. So my bad on all the mistakes from above!
Lone Bugle said it all!!!! One of the best threads on Bowsite. I enjoyed this more than watching any dumb TV hunting show. They all could take a lesson from you on how to keep the suspense up and have a perfect ending.
I love the pic of you two, all the meat, and the caped out heads!!
Awesome adventure
who cares about the grammar its a hunting story its raw and full of adventure ,, not some fancy story thats been edited .,, congras way to go
this should certainly be made into a movie!! you have done a great job sharing a top notch experience with all of us, phenomenal story and thank you for sharing. to be honest, i never even noticed the grammar issue, but i can't belive you went to alaska without a wingnut in your saw! i say we take a vote.........best thread ever on bowsite!! all in favor.............
That is definitely a dream hunt! Very nice and congratulations!
ps maybe you should consider giving yourself a new handle, maybe standswitta.44? ;)
When we landed back in Galena there was literally 2-3 minutes of light left but that huge moon was coming up again helping the light situation. This picture shows how much stuff we had in our trip back. We had two full camps, four qtrs of moose, two ribcages, all the backstraps and all of our personal gear and three humans. Two being oversized..Joe at 6'2" and Chris the same size. I'm the only regular size human om the plane.
Joe said he was "a little" worried that we wouldn't clear the trees but said we had a good foot or two.. I'm glad I was sitting in the back of the plane.
Joe at the helm and Chris in co-pilot.
Awesome Story!! My brother and I are scheduled to go with Joe next year. I will probably PM you later.
Joe is the best!
Enjoyed my bear hunt with him. Top class!
Thanks for sharing!
We got back to Galena, showered (a great hot shower) and went to bed around 1am. Chris made arrangements to fly out on Tuseday afternoon back to Fairbanks. It was actually really nice to sit around and do practially nothing but watch college football the whole day.
During the day we were lazy but managed to head outside during breaks in the rain and take some more photos around camp our the damage other hunters had done as well as our skull plates.
there were some great bulls taken during the week and now I have to go back in the near future to get mine... It's a great excuse to go back.
Awesome! Congrats on your hunt and thanks for sharing!
Not that it matters but I had my days messed up. We shot the bulls on September 15, were flown out on the 16th and rescheduled our flights back to Fairbanks on Sunday the 17th.
My adventure continued as I decided to drive back from Alaska with my dad but had to overnight my passport and pick up our meat and antlers from Everts Air Cargo on Tuesday the 20th. To say this was a long trip was unheard of.
For a plug to a really good friend, we stayed in Talkeetna with Kim and Randy Cummins of Huskytown Kennels and dog sled tours. Randy is my dad's best friend from childhood. It was a great time during our coupld days there seeing Denali Park and the area around Talkeetna.
Awesome thread, it would take 6 months for me to come down from the high from a trip like this! Congratulations to you and Chris!
Best of Luck, Jeff
Thanks for all the great words. Here Chris and I at the Galena Airport...getting ready to come home
and finally... the work continues. We brought back both hind qtrs and the back straps. We donated to the local school system the rest. Again thanks and please feel free to contact me with any questions.
I really have a lot of other input on this hunt that I would like to share with everyone like gear reviews, what I brought I should not have, and what I should have brought. I think that I may start another thread for this at some point. Like Bug headnets. Make sure to bring a No-see-um head net, not a mosquito one. Also 100% deet is incredibly important. The black flies are horrible. Check out some of Chris's damage before we could get the headnets out of our gear.
Interesting about the bugs. I was hunting at the precise same time as you, but the hunt was not based on a lake system. We saw a few bugs, but not one worthwhile bite in 12 days of hunting.
Lastly... This hunt became reality when Chris and I were coming back from a hog hunt in Texas. We had done this hunt several times when Chris told me that it was time to do something extreme. Right then and there we decided moose in Alaska. We booked this hunt in late 2008 and simply chipped away over the years to afford this.
My point here is that you can do these hunts if you sacrifice and plan well. Don't look at the total cost, look at how much per year you have to send or put away. Break it into months and you'll be surprised how little effort it may take to do this. Be patient and book 2-3 years in advance. Give yourself a chance to do this. Again, thanks for all the great comments.
On to more elk hunting and Ohio whitetails in four weeks. We are already planning moose meat at elk camp. I drew a rifle tag since my Colorado bowhunt for elk was interrupted from my moose hunt. It just continues.
CHEERS!!!!
Kevin, they were aweful, all the time. I was really impressed that they could stay out during an torential rain storm...
Awesome hunt gentlemen, thanks for taking us along. It's this kind of action that makes Bowsite unique.
Bou, I've got to disagree however, that this thread makes a "mockery" out of the backyard mobile hunt threads.
There are many guys here, a lot of them new bowhunters, who enjoy those threads as well. If you don't, skip them. No need to trash guys over it.
Thanks guys for the comments. Please don't turn this thread into a debate. Just wanted to share my hunt with everyone.
My apologies Danny and Bou, you are correct. This is not the place for that at all. Awesome hunt and awesome thread. Thanks again for sharing it.
Great thread and adventure! Your brings and don't brings are desperatly needed. Mike
Perfect timing...Have been talking with some guys about doing something like this and I will be sharing this with them. Do you think 4 in camp would be too many? It probably depends on the area.
Great adventure...thanks for sharing it!
Shiras, YES four guys is unfortunately too many. Simply due to game densities. Split it up into two camps to increase your chance of success. I'm sure Joe would tell you the exact same thing.
Awesome story and pictures. For those of you who are even remotely thinking of doing this hunt, GO!!!!
My buddy and I took two beautiful bulls while hunting that same lake with Joe Schuster in 2008. One was shot right where Chris' bull fell, and the other was on the lake that Danny and Chris didn't make it to (for good reason!)
Joe hunts draw areas, but the odds aren't too bad and the hunting is great.
Steve, that is an incredible coincidence. If you get a chance, please posty our pics here as well.
oops. I never re-read my posts befor I hit send. Post your pics.. not posty our
Great story. Congrats to both of you. I hope you start the thread on equipment. I'll be looking forward to that one too.
Danny, It was with pure joy that I read of your adventures! I remember quite a few friday mornings at the range listening to you and your hunting dreams! I am looking forward to more adventures with you in the future!
Here is a bull we passed up the first morning we could hunt in that camp. The area is 4 brow tines or 50".
I was there and heard you guys shoot and stopped at that lake on my way up river and noticed your camp. I will say this one of you guys has some set of lungs I heard you let out a wahooooooo from about 2.5 miles away as the crow flies after you killed out. Watched you guys fly out in 2 loads late in the eve. I think the second trip got you back to G town shortly before dark. We took a 63 and a half a few days after you left. Congrats to both of you , how big was the big one?
Wildone... Wow...that is incredible!!!! and you are right. that was Chris..he's loud... The big one was 60...did you kill a moose near our camp? We heard shooting a couple days before not too far up the river.. What a small world...
DANNY! Mary and I have been anxiously waiting to read about your trip! What an incredible and awesome result - thanks for sharing all of this with us. Mary has been wanting us to go on a moose hunt - she can practically see a big rack over the fireplace - but alas...I should have gone on a DIY hunt like this when I was a much younger man. There is NO way now I could carve up one of those critters on my own. We are so glad to read about your success. As I wait for the upcoming rut here in Iowa, we wish you continued good hunting ~ Gary & Mary
Gary!, I tried to email ya a couple times in the past for some recomendations on whitetails. great to hear your doing good. I'll PM Ya...
Steve, how big do you think that bull is above?
When we showed the video to the guys back in Galena they thought he was over 50", but he was the first one we got a look at and didn't chance it. It was my buddy's day to shoot and both of us wanted to take him, but when you see the bull he ended up taking at the end of our hunt you'll see why he's glad he didn't. Here he is mulling it over.
And here we are with the bull he shot.
No That was even further north of me probably by 3 miles as the crow flies. We shot 2 days after you guys left out . That bull with the long brow points and narrow palms is stupid, he was standing in that same pose at 100 yards while we were butchering the one we had on the ground . He's gonna get himself killed if he keeps doing that. Here is the one my buddy tipped over
That's a great bull, both of them. The paddle's on Steve's buddy is insane.
Wildone...that's surely a weird left paddle on that bull...
Stands- Glad to see you did so well. I hope some of the info I provided was helpful. Man, it was great reliving my hunts along with you.
I know having them die in the lake is a pain, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
My first bull (66") died in the water and my hunting partner was my 5'1" 105# wife. She couldn't even hold up the quarters for me to cut loose. I had to prop them on my shoulders while I cut away. Took me 2 1/2 days to do it by myself. I DO know how much a head, antlers, and cape weigh. It IS a lot. My antlers alone weighed 72#s.
Congratulations again on a great hunt and thanks for sharing with us. Great photos.
NYB was one of the guys along with Stekewood I pestered and pestered. Thanks to both of you for so much help and patients.
You didn't pester me at all. I enjoyed every bit of our correspondence and It's great to see that the hunt lived up to the expectations. Hopefully this thread will inspire others to go for it.
Im already planning 2015... that's serious too...
Had several PM's for Joe's website. It's: http://www.alaskasport.com/
awesome story! do you have a rough weight on what a rear quarter weighed?
Really Heavy!!! With the bone in and please someone from AK correct me, I'm assuming somewhere over 150lbs?
Heavy...
Those are "Real" moose , congrats to all . Much more impressive then some of the dinks that some people shoot !! Great story !
Great write up there Stands. You don't get feel for how big those moose are until you see some of the photos in the dingies. Hey I remember when you came up with that pin name, circa 1997. What a Guber!
I just wanted to bump this... I'm almost done with Tax Season. Working almost 80 hours a week since the middle of January makes this seem like a long time ago. I just received my tanned capes and skulls last week. I'll take a picture and post them soon. Only TWO WEEKS LEFT till i get my life back!!!!
I enjoyed the write up. Looked like a great time.
Thanks for bringing this back, going next year on a float for moose/archery....this helps the waiting!
Awesome pics and great story!! That's my dream hunt too, Alaska/Yukon moose hunt. I can't imagine working on a moose that size, the ones around here are big enough.
This is very inspiring, thank you very much for sharing.
One heck of an adventure and some great pics - you and Chris really earned your moose!
Easily one of the best accounts of a hunting trip. Congrats on making it happen and thank you for sharing it with us.
Might as well show us some taxidermy photos while you are at it!!!
Well...my buddy has been busy so nothing on the wall yet!!
Thanks that was a great read and very helpful!!!!
Brady
Super thread hope to do the same sometime....
I would miss elk hunting EVERY year, if I could do this.
I enjoyed this thread immensely. Thank you for taking the time to share it.
Hey Danny, this hunt/story was better than watching CSU beat Washington State.
Stories with pictures after the hunt surely trump "live" hunts.
Nicely none, you have set the bar high for the rest of us who tell/photo our hunts.
My best, Paul
Thanks for the bump as this was before my "time". Congrats!
Thanks guys. Not glory seeking, was helping a fellow hunter plan for his hunt and this gave him an idea of our hunt.. Can't wait to go back !!! 2016!!
Don't know how I missed this great story the first time around, so thanks for bumping it.
I just booked this hunt for 2016. Thanks for the excellent write up of your experience. I'm sure I will revisit it several times as I prepare for my trip.
You're gonna have a great hunt Badlands. I was just back up there with Joe again for caribou this past September and his moose hunters took some phenomenal bulls. Hope you get one like this!
Stekewood,
I actually called Joe to book a caribou hunt and he told me he wasn't going to offer them anymore. So I had to go out an extra year but I booked the moose hunt.
I've never ought a tag that wasn't over the counter. Having a 2.5 year wait ahead of me is agonizing!
Btw...that bull is a monster. I'll pm you in a couple of years as I start planning for this hunt.
Great read, again!
Sept can't get here soon enough.
